Politicians: pay back the wages you’ve been (over)payed, and go home. It really is time to put some people at the wheel that know what they’re doing, because obviously the ones we had up to now are le crap.

You know what I really hate? Crap parkers. People that have a car, and that, according to them, needs to take up atleast 1.5 parking spots. Parking so badly that you – parked nicely in between the lines, in the bloody center – can’t get in or out of your car anymore, save by crawling in the car over the seats.

Lately we’ve been encountering more and more of these idiots, so we’re starting a new category: the crap parkers.

Here’s the first (ok, not _that_ crap, but it was crap enough that I couldn’t get in anymore the regular way) – car on the left:

The latest idiocy: Tom Boonen, a professional cyclist, has been caught (outside of a sports event) using cocaine. Using this drug is an offence, punishable by law.

What does our wonderful country do? “Oh, my, poor guy, he probably took it because he was so lonely… bad drugs! bad drugs! good Tom! Let’s make a martyr and a hero out of him, but most of all, let’s definitly not punish him!”

WTF?!? He’s just an idiot, who 1. doesn’t do SHIT for our country (he’s been living in Monaco since 2005, so we don’t really see any tax revenue from him), does harddrugs, and now says “I’m sorry” and everything is okay again?!?

His team is not gonna punish him. The government is not going to punish him. Luckely some other countries (thank you Switserland) have a bit more sense and banned him participating.

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Yay. Soon it’ll be Aalst Carnaval, a so-called cultural feast. I rather call it a drunkfest, since there’s actually very little culture and loads of drinking going on.

The cultural part are the processions, made with styrofoam about events in the world. They’re usually fun and wellmade. Unfortunately, there’s also the other part, where people behave like pigs, trash everything they can (even the ceilings of the train stations have to suffer and be utterly destroyed), drink themselves to hell, let their kids alone home even though they’re not even 5 year old, etc etc. I can’t say much good about it, I find it a horrible waste of taxpayer money and wish they would either make the people that want to attend it pay a fee, or scrap it all together.

Also, don’t think of going to Aalst during carnival season with a bike – unless you’re a fan of punctured tires because of all the glass that’s all over the place. Best time to go back is around a week afterwards – then the smell of puke and pee will finally have gone from the place.

Here’s a nice pic of the trainstation of Aalst, all dressed up for the occasion:

The Belgian National Railways (known as NMBS/SNCB) really totally suck. Completely and utterly.

Today, yet another strike in Brussels South station, causing endless delays and cancellations.

Do you think the managers of the railways notice this? Ofcourse not. They might even get another bonus for ending a strike without having to give anything to the employees. The only ones who suffer are the travellers, who after a long day of work just want to get home.

I support the right to strike, but they’re really stretching it. No more sympathy from me, strikers!

In Belgium, if you want to get somewhere on time – don’t take the train.

For the third year counting, the trains have been even less on time. According to the NMBS/SNCB, 89.3% of all trains arrives on time (this is 1.5% less then last year). This is a very wrong way of calculating, since this doesn’t take into account:

delays up to 5 minutes

cancelled trains

missed connections

If you take all that into account, only 47% of all the trains in 2007 was on time!

Out of personal experience, I can say that this the 47% is way more accurate – in the 1.5 months I’ve been taking the train, not half of them were on time. Usually you either depart too late and arrive later, depart on time and arrive late, miss connections, suddely stand still in the middle of nowhere with no reason given. On average I’ve been 10-15 minutes late getting somewhere. The top is 45 minutes, thanks to a missed connection (because of the first train being too late).

And yet they keep on saying that the train is the best medium to get somewhere… sure, if you don’t care when you get there.